nal pre-existence of the soul in order to justify their
claim of future existence for it. They argued that if the soul is
immortal, it must have always existed, for an immortal thing could not
have been created--if it was not immortal by nature, it could never be
made so, and if it was immortal by nature, then it had always existed.
The argument usually employed is this: A thing is either mortal or
immortal, one or the other; if it is mortal it has been born and must
die; if it is immortal, it cannot have been born, neither can it die;
mortality means subject to life and death--immortality means immunity
from both. The Greeks devoted much time and care to this argument, and
attached great importance to it. They reasoned that nothing that
possessed Reality could have emerged from nothingness, nor could it pass
into nothingness. If it were Real it was Eternal; if it was not Eternal
it was not Real, and would pass away even as it was born. They also
claimed that the sense of immortality possessed by the Ego, was an
indication of its having experienced life in the past, as well as
anticipating life in the future--there is a sense of "oldness" pervading
every thought of the soul regarding its own nature. It is claimed as an
illogical assumption to hold that back of the present there extends an
eternity of non-existence for the soul, while ahead of it there extends
an eternity of being--it is held that it is far more logical to regard
the present life as merely a single point in an eternity of existence.

It is argued, further, that Reincarnation fits in with the known
scientific principle of conservation of energy--that is, that no energy
is ever created or is lost, but that all energy is but a form of the
universal energy, which flows on from form to form, from manifestation
to manifestation, ever the same, and yet manifesting in myriad
forms--never born, never dying, but always moving on, and on, and on to
new manifestations. Therefore it is thought that it is reasonable to
suppose that the soul follows the same law of re-embodiment, rising
higher and higher, throughout time, until finally it re-enters the
Universal Spirit from which it emerged, and in which it will continue to
exist, as it existed before it emerged for the cycle of manifestation.
It is also argued that Reincarnation brings Life within the Law of Cause
and Effect, just as is everything else in the universe. The law of
re-birth, according to the causes gener